thank you for spending this thursday with us. we are so grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hey, ari. >> hi, alicia. thank you so much. welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. we are tracking news on the prosecution of donald trump with the development that doj seeking a january trial date for the coup case. proposing to start the year with the trial. just weeks out from the gop primary, the first one, a plan that may concern trump and the republican party. now, a judge will make that final call, but this is the frame work for our special report, which begins right now. the trump coup and insurrection

were some of the greatest attacks on democracy in u.s. history, yet it can be easy to forget that all the horror, reaction, discussion, and coverage, for all the trials of people that stormed the capitol and the convictions of seditionists there was no coup probe of indictment for years. the man who led the january 6th rally, impeached for inciting an insurrection, that man, two years after those events, the person at the center of it all was not facing a serious coup probe let alone charges. reporting shows quite the opposite. not only was he not facing that, but the fbi and doj avoiding investigating trump for optics and review of the evidence. we all know that. that was the status quo for years. so, in our special report

tonight, let's begin with the very simple question -- what changed? one thing, and it's the kind of change in law enforcement that can change everything as so memorably put in "48 hours". >> there's a new sheriff in town. and his name is reggie hamlin. >> a new sheriff came to town. his name is jack smith. and unlike bob mueller, he was a prosecutor who was unknown in america. those other two known, they would run the fbi and doj. but smith stayed far from politics or big posts. he even stayed far from the continental u.s. lately, doing human rights prosecutions at the hague. he was known within legal circles as a nonpartisan no nonsense pit bull who worked

hard and fast. then, well, this part we've all learned once, jack smith went to work on this case, everyone got to know him quickly. le. >> jack is a really good prosecutor. >> faster than a speeding bullet. >> he is really thorough. >> very much like a bulldog in terms of what he -- once he get his teeth around it. >> another no nonsense tough as nails prosecutor who will follow the facts and won't be intimidated. >> jack smith is not playing. >> if anyone can take on trump, thes probably this guy. >> he's a serious, sober minded prosecutor who is not going to be deterred. >> jack smith clearly proved to be a legal foe unlike any trump has faced. colleagues recalling how he doesn't like to sit there playing with his food. certainly not -- jack smith does not play around. he moves fast and takes action, having found both the evidence

and resolve to do what no one else in american history had done, to indict a former president. then he did it again. >> today an indictment was unsealed charging donald trump with felony violations of our national security laws. >> today an indictment was unsealed, charging donald j. trump with conspireing to defraud the united states, conspireing to disenfranchise voters and conspireing and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. our laws that protect national defense information are critical. the attack on our nation's capitol on january 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. my office will seek a speedy trial. my office will seek a speedy trial. we have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to

everyone. the department of justice has remind committed to ensuring accountability. >> now, those are jack smith's only remarks ever of any kind across the nine months he's been special counsel. it was two minutes at the first indictment. about two and a half minutes at the second indictment of donald trump. we counted. now, that's on purpose. tonight right now we're going to show you some of the rare footage of jack smith in action, including one of the few times that he actually explained why he takes this quiet and careful approach. his skepticism toward any society that would try to convict people through public leaking or public hype instead of in-court, careful evidence. we are airing this footage for the first time on "the beat." i want to you hear on our special report, really take this in. listen to jack smith's detailed

explanation. >> we don't want to live in a society where someone is convicted based on what's in the newspapers. i can tell you very often we have cases that we investigate where there are allegations in the newspapers which, if those allegations were true and if those allegation were the complete story, i could see why the average american would think that is corrupt, but we don't want to live in a society of a form of mob rule where we just get a few allegations without any process, convict somebody, but i think that's the role of the prosecutors to take allegations like that when they're public and investigate with see if the facts actually back up what's there. is the allegation and the source of it credible? >> let the facts lead, make sure it's credible, and don't do a lot of public hype through the media or otherwise in advance. now, he was saying all that before taking on this special counsel role. it's interesting tonight to see that, well, it seems he's been consistent.

that's how he described it then, and that's how he's been acting and living through this role. defendant trump not the first head of state that smith has put on trial, either. that's experience you may have heard about. the attorney general knew about it when he recruited jack smith. here's some background on that. >> now his past has caught up with kosovo is indicted in the hague. >> he's been charged with war crimes and crime against humanity. >> jack smith led that high-stakes case. we actually have some of this rare footage of smith making the case in court, leading the prosecution. and before i show it to you as part of this report, let me remind you, this is not something we've seen in any of the trump hearings so far, smith overseeing other experienced prosecutors to do this.

how did he get to oversee them? how did he get to this post? here we're going to see how he does it, jack smith striking a consistent and calm posture, sober in the courtroom prosecuting alleged war crimes. >> the truth will be laid before this court in the coming weeks. my office will be unrelenting and unstopping. fair administration of justice requires building and fostering institutions that can protect those who seek justice. >> mr. mustafa used their power to victimize and to brutalize fellow kosovo al banians. no justification for the conditions under which they were held or the manner in which they were brutalized and tortured during their detainment. watch the trials and follow. watch ow this court functions and then judge.

there can never be an expiration date on accountability. you will hear from victims who have waited two decades -- two decades to be heard. the charges here do not directly concern the events of the war in kosovo occurring over 20 years ago. they include attempts to intimidate people and to not telling this court what happened to them 20 years ago and attempts to on struck the wok of this institution at any cost. >> that's pretty striking. facing those documented horrors, that horror that people were put through to live through, and what that quest for u.s. j is might look like, you see jack smith's approach. he could have been more dramatic. there was obviously pathos, drama and sadness in what happened. he could have been louder. but he took that measured path. that was his approach. he also argued in that same trial that the authoritarian

tried to use lies and exploit propaganda and the media as part of his criminal plots. now, that might sound familiar here on the home front. it's a point that echos in jack smith's indictment of trump. while the u.s. constitution does value a free press, which makes up its own minds with its freedom, in that very case, as prosecutor smith was careful to note something quite important, at least in the view of the law, that while the journalists would make up their own minds, many journalists there rejected fraudulent and propaganda documents from the accused. take a listen. here's smith in this rare court footage. >> the accused in, chitting their crimes, tried to amplify the damage they caused by exhorting the media in kosovo to public. ethical journalists refused to publish the documents the

accused tried to provide them. >> jack smith couldn't have known, no one could have necessarily known how big a deal fraudulent documents furnished in interimmediate areas and hacks, and ultimately america pushed all the way up trying to get it into vice president pence's hands. he couldn't have known the parallels here, but there they are. at the justice department jark smith's last big job was leading the unit that prosecutes corrupt politicians. it's a post he prepared for with prior prosecutions of abuse in government, regardless of whether they were controversial or unpopular in the public realm, like a victorious prosecution and trial of a white police officer, garnering a 30-year prison sentence that was at the time unheard of. but smith went right at it, just

like he's taken on top figures in both parties. consider someone who was once the democratic party's rising star. the rapid fall of nominee john edwards. jack smith led that prosecution in 2011. >> john and i are honest and realistic with the american people. >> the story sending shock waves through the presidential campaign. after months of denials, john edwards admitted he had an affair while his wife battling cancer. >> the fall from grace for john edwards just as stunning and tonight a new low after a grand jury charged him with six felonies. >> a new low takes you back to grand jury proceeding there is that were moving a pace against at the time someone of the other party, democratic, and now where we followed a lot of those against republican donald trump. smith oversaw the case, and later in the context of these

types of cases in general -- not just edwards, but the tricky balance issues and lines. he explained a fair prosecution for corruption does require intent. we heard a lot about intent in his current coup case. and proving that can be hard. he recounted how government officials can be in denial. >> a person's intent. did they do this for that? did they act corruptly? oftentimes when i go to speak to folks about their corruption programs and what sort of cases they're doing, often times i go place and i hear, we don't have a corruption problem here, jack. my immediate reaction is, you definitely have a corruption problem. >> some legal guffaws. every place there's power and

money and any kind of temptation will have at least the possibility of those problems or corruption. so if you don't think you're susceptible to it or anyone in your department is, then you're probably more susceptible than usual. in the edwards case, that theory was using legal campaign donations to conceal a mistress from voters. that fell apart at trial. edwards found not guilty on one charge. justice department did not appeal that case. one, jack smith was nonpartisan. two, he was clearly aggressive. so aggressive he didn't actually win over the jury on that case. and three -- and this is so important right now, especially as trump allies and others want to make up stoies or tell you narratives or outright lies about doj or fbi or jack smith without looking at the record. our point here in this special report is looking at the record, including a loss, the edwards loss. the third piece is that smith

demonstrated a rescue for legal limits, the kind of measured professional humility. and again, we've gone through all of this and picked out the keys for you. this is something he has spoken about in a sometimes baffling legal lines that are drawn for pursuing politicians. >> folk who is commit these crimes are sophisticated individuals, and by the large, they give the money and receive the money, benefits in all sort of complicated forms that make it not nearly as stark, not easy to report in five lines in a newspaper article. because of that, because of how the crimes are committed, because they're often committed by sophisticated people with great means, we do need laws that are broad enough to reach conduct --. i mean, right now under the honor services statute as it exists, we cannot charge undisclosed conflicts of

interest. just imagine, just to follow up on that scenario. you have a mayor, and he takes bribes for city contracts. he takes bribes, puts money in his pocket for someone that shouldn't have gotten a contract. the american people are not getting what they paid for. that's bribery. i can prosecute that mayor. that same mayor says you know what? i don't want the bribes. i want more money. i'm going to start my own company and hide my interest in it. i'm going funnel the contracts to me. i can't prosecute that case. and i think the average american in terms of what's wrong, if you believe those facts, if those facts in an objective investigation are brought to light, i think the average american wants to department of justice -- >> really important point there that he makes. i played it in full so you could really absorb it. he says i can't prosecute that case he also makes it clear that he thinks it would be good

policy to be able to prosecute that case and go so far as to say he thinks most persons agree. if the politicians are self-dealing that's what the corruption laws ought to be for. sounds rational. notice where he draws the line. he can not go beyond that. he doesn't say, so we look for a loophole or trick or throw a different charge at hem themmer the ends justify the means or something you don't want anyone in power to indict, so prosecute, to jail to seek any level of punishment. you don't want those people playing fast and loose. it is striking. i wanted you to hear jack smith did the opposite. he said you might want the go farther. might sound like corruptioning but i can't go beyond what the statute says, full stop. that's how he prosecutes the cases. as andrew weissman and others have said, probably the most important trial in the history of the united states, in the

history of the united states justice department. jack smith is the one leading it. i told you this is one of our special reports. i have more footage in the conclusion when back in 60 seconds. seconds. the citi custom cash℠ card automatically adjusts to earn you more cash back in your top eligible spend category. hi. ♪♪ you don't have to keep tabs on rotating categories... this is the only rotating i care about. ... or activate anything to earn. your cash back automatically adjusts for you. can i get a cucumber water?

earn 5% cash back that automatically adjusts to your top eligible spend category, up to $500 spent each billing cycle with the citi custom cash℠ card. i love it... [voice vibrating] our special report continues. jack smith's view of accountability is pretty clear, and that may concern donald trump as well as unindicted coconspirators. smith believes in a tough old-school view that punishment matter because it deters future crimes. if you prosecute everyone who helped the coup attempt for example, the deterrence frame work is that then people who might otherwise consider doing this in the future will at least think twice or not go near the next coup attempt. as we have been going through this footage, the rare footage sometimes, here is jack smith on deterrence and how trials can bring fast and fair justice.

>> i think one of the good things about this area of the law is the people who commit these offenses are deterrable. they have something to lose, and if you bring a case and show that the department of justice brings cases like this, other actors will not commit acts they otherwise would have done. >> the business of a prosecutor is accountability, individual accountability for crimes that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. i know that truth never damages a cause that is just. trials do not need to take years to complete, that justice can be thorough, reasoned, transparent, efficient, and fair. >> that is what jack smith sounds like on and off the job. and he's on the job of his life now. as part of our special coverage i want to bring in a former federal prosecutor who sat exactly in those shoes, renato

mariotti. >> good to be here. >> we were careful to show donald trump faces a prosecutor unlike any other. smith has spoken a total of four and a half minutes in the entire tenure of this post. what do you glean from how he tried those other cases and how he sounded at other points in his career? >> well, it's really interesting, ari. i think probably the most striking thing we heard from him is him talking about understanding the limits of what he could do as a prosecutor and working within those limits to make sure that justice was done, right? he understood that, for example, he couldn't charge that conflict of interest case, so he had to work around that. i think it's important to understand what he did with the january 6th indictment. here's a man who decided not to take an example and cite the charge, which would have created legal problems or slowed him down. he's been dealt a difficult hand trying to, as you mentioned earlier, trying to rush to the finish line, trying to get this

up before the election, and i think he's recognizing the fact that he has to secure a quick conviction here and is shaping indictments to do that. >> what do you see in his approach at the hague? as mentioned it would be equally valid to have a sort of loud or strong or more a motive presentation, certainly you and i have been around cases where a prosecutor dealing with crimes with terrible actions relatable or empathetic victims takes that tact. what do you think of the tact he took? i think we'll look at some of that footage of him at the hague. >> look, the person he's taking is the right approach in my opinion. when you have the evidence, meticulously going through and pointing at the evidence is focusing on the evidence is the way to go. prosecutors who are full of bombast typically don't often have the goods on the other side. i think what jack smith is

showing here is quiet confidence. the fact that he wants to rush to trial also shows confidence. both what he was talk about in the context of the hague but also here with donald trump. he is happy to get the trial, because he's confident in how that trial is going to end up. >> hmm. yeah. autocrats use propaganda. that's been true even as the nature of distribution has changed in many different eras. and propaganda is dangerous precisely because you don't have to physically oppress people. you don't need weaponry if you trick enough of them into this or that position, whether that's hating authoritarianism or groups. i want to play that other piece of footage where he makes a point -- again, who could see how things echo. people have a choice of what they want to repost on facebook

or whatever platform they use. and i thought this was so striking that in a related context of both authoritarianism and ethnic hate, he talked about the ethical people who chose not to perpetuate things. take a listen. >> the accused in committing their crimes tried to amplify the damage they caused by exhorting the media in kosovo to publish. the ethical journalists refused to publish the documents they provided them. >> this question is as much societal as it is legal. i'm not talking about a repost or publisher's liability. i'm asking you the deeper question about why you're a prosecutor, why you care about justice, which is, what do you think of his appeal of how he exercise our choices in the face of propaganda matters and how that relates at home right now? >> it's pretty profound. i have to say, i'm strike by the way in which he has an

understanding of some of the softer ways in which people can exercise power. it's such an interesting different approach to robert mueller. robert mueller was very old school. he saw things i think in the way that -- in a very black and white way that the justice department traditionally has. jack smith -- without that beard, you showed baby face video of jack smith. he's from a different generation. i think he understands the way an authoritarian can use these soft methods of increasing their power and staying in power. i think his experience prosecuting a sitting head of state, as you highlighted a moment ago, really prepared him for a moment like this. it shows when someone is desperate to stay in power, it's important ultimately to find the way to bring him to account quickly, and i think that's what he's trying to do here. >> yeah. understood. really interesting. and like i said, we wanted to

turn to a fellow prosecutor for this. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. we are done with our special report, but not with the news of the day and "the beat." we have a lot coming up, including as we talk about where evidence moves. a former republican white house veteran who says jack smith does have the goods on trump and why that matters not only in court, but beyond. stay with us. nd stay with us -dad, what's with your toenail? -oh, that...? i'm not sure... -it's a nail fungus infection. -...that's gross! -it's nothing, really...

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affect both our democracy and defendant trump. in florida, trump and one of his indicted coconspirators pleading not guilty to the superseding indictment, which is just fancy court speak for more charges. trump did not have to go in the courtroom today. that's fine. they just entered the additional plea through his attorney. there's also that new codefendant down there who does not have local council. under rule he's got to get that so still hasn't formally entered a plea. in michigan, nine fraudulent electors face felony charges for their plot and role in the wider coup to subvert the election. they made their first court appearances through video feed. one of the big questions about all of this is whether people were just going legitimate lawyering or something more. we have a special guest on these questions. james schultz is here he's a former trump white house lawyer working under don mcgahn within the trump transition team and has spoken out about why jack

smith may have strong evidence. welcome, james. >> thanks for having me on. >> absolutely. let's start with your view of the strength of the coup case as filed by jack smith. your legal thoughts. >> so, i thought he was very careful and smart about the way he went about indicting the case. they didn't charge incitement. he took the first amendment issue, addressed it at the outset and said, look, the president has a right to lie. the president has a lot of rights to say a lot of things, but what he didn't have a right to do is commit crimes and conspire to overturn the outcome of that election through a number of different things, including the fake electors scheme, having doj send a letter there were serious issues regarding the election to swish out the attorney general, so on and so forth. so i think it was really smart in the way he charged the case, but it's not without, you know -- this is a novel case, and it's a case that's going to find it way into the appellate

courts eventually, and that could be after trial on those issues. but i do think it's a strong case, and i think it's compelling and smart and thoughtful. >> yeah. you ever see "the fugitive" with harrison ford? >> yes. >> yeah, the suspect is a doctor, and the allegation is that he killed someone, and if you're a doctor and you say, hey, i cut people open all the time at work, i'm a doctor, that doesn't mean that you can leave the office, go home, and cut them up to death. i say that with deliberate bluntness because you, don mcgahn, and a lot of other lawyers in and around republican circles apparently did your duty, apparently did not cross the line into anyone saying you should be a coconspirator or anything else. it's actually -- and i say this in all fairness -- a small minority of people who have law

degrees who are in this much hot water. and i think you and i and any fair person would respect that lawyers have a zealous advocacy duty among other roles to play, but what do you see in whether that minority of people, the people who actually clashed with the mcgahn's and the subsequent white house council as narrated by the jan 6th committee crossed the line? do you think they crossed the line? do you think it's fair game? do you think mr. eastman and mr. giuliani were just giving advice? >> apparently jack smith believed they were conspirators in the case, and that was the term he used in the case. so it remains to be seen as to whether they're charged with any crimes there. and certainly, you know, they've used the crime fraud exception to bring these folks in and talk about what they had said, and that's something to break through the attorney/client privilege. so i do think there -- if i'm

sitting in their shoes, i'm worried about what's coing my way but i also think it's worth noting that the lawyers like pat cipollone, philbin, that went into that room and beat back the idea of doj sending that letter, that beat back the idea of some of these things or of some of the things that were ongoing -- you know, hearing a meeting was taking place and jumping into that meeting that's the right thing to do as a government lawyer. their job is not to represent the president in his individual capacity and what he was going to do with an election. their job is to protect the institution of the president and i represent the institution of the presidency, and that's what they were doing, meaning the folks who were white house lawyers at the time. >> yeah. copy. john lauro represents the president now, as does the gentleman mr. kajeweski represents one of the trump fans

who based on what they were asked to do went into the elector fraud. i mention both lawyers because they have for whatever reason interlocking defense, which is, hey, we didn't mean it. it's not really fraud if we were kind of just playing around. take a listen. >> the attorney general has charged these individuals with essentially forgery in addition to uttering a publishing and other similar crimes. the problem is we would maintain it's not a forgery. no one in their right mind, i believe, whether it could be in washington, d.c., or michigan would believe that document would trump the certificate of election that was rightfully sent. >> you know, james, my job is to ask the questions, so i'm going to just ask it -- is this a real legal defense that a crappy

forgery or fraud that runt realistic is somehow no longer a forgery? >> so, this is going to be an interesting case, right? because it somewhat conflicts with jack smith's theory of the case, right, in the january 6th case. jack smith's theory of the case, if you read into it, was that these folks were duped into doing this, right, that this was part of a fraud scheme on the part of the defendants in that case. the defendants in that case. defendant in that case. in the fraud scheme, to get these fake electors to then sign those documents. so i think that's going to be an interesting legal issue that the attorney general in michigan is going to have to answer to at some point in time, but as to the defense of the fraud, i don't know enough about that case to comment on defense that they're going to posit there. obviously it was a fake elector scheme, a different event, and you saw the fact that they -- in

the indictment they were careful about saying there's a difference between pennsylvania and michigan, in that pennsylvania, the letter -- the words said, if this is approved by a court of law, or something to that effect, then the electors would move forward. in michigan it didn't have that language, and in fact the allegation in the jack smith indictment is that -- is that the folks that were asking them to sign were saying, hey, look, we don't want anybody to hear what's going on in pennsylvania in michigan and other states. >> yeah, appreciate that. it's funny that's your basic legal breakdown of it. it overlaps with something we were discussing earlier in the show, that smith has a record or reputation for being really precise, which is not just throwing stuff at the wall and saying, it's all terrible. see what we can get, overcharge it bum as you just reminded folks, really dealing with the facts as they have been developed or underneath. james schultz, given your background, including, as

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sometimes the news comes in themes, and we don't know why. we just know that that happens. because we have been discussing tonight the various ways that if you have power it's very important if you're going to exercise it ethically to know where the lines are and so take

those limits seriously, even if you're not going to get in trouble for it. we discussed that in the context of jack smith's record. now look at the contrast, it gets worse and worse for clarence thomas. the relationships between thomas and now three billionaires and finding over the years they helped him with an outrageous grift. 37 destinations, 26 private jet flights. 8 helicopter rides, 12 vip passes the sporting events. time in luxury reports and an open standing invite to an exclusive private golf club in florida. as i told you before, if you know nothing else, know this -- clarence thomas is getting far more in value, many millions more in value from these donors, these billionaires, than from his actual government salary he took an oath for, which raises

the question, who does he work for? not all have been given the disclosure one would want. he may have violated the law by failing to disclose the flights, sports tickets. ethical norms. although the question for roberts is whether thinks supreme court has norms anymore. will clarence thomas make this support and this justice go down in history as one of the most obviously shamed pathetic grifting scandals ever? because apparently chief justice roberts isn't afraid about standing up for rules to clarence thomas. i use the word pathetic with all seriousness. meanwhile, thomas lied to the public claiming he's everyman. we showed this. i want to show it again. there's details he prefers to be in a rv with regular folks. >> one of his passions is this 40-foot long motor home he and

his wife use to explore the united states in his downtime. >> you find this relaxing? >> oh, yeah, it's away from the sort of meanness that you see in washington. you get here with just the regular folks, and it's so pleasant. >> yes, he cast the rv as a way to be with regular folk. that was false, a lie, and one that was clearly heavy on his mind. maybe some guilt in the back of his mind, because "the times" reports that rv was financed by one of these elites who made a lot of money in health care. even when he's talking about what he does to get to regular folk it's funded by billionaires and he hides it. the question for clarence thomas and justice roberts is, if you didn't do anything wrong, why are you hiding it all? propublica reporting on vacations he took with harlan crow. he defended that saying it was a

personal hospitality from close personal friends and wasn't reportable. the rules with basically imbig use. justices have few exceptions on what they can accept. some senators pushing forward new legislation that would try to add a code of conduct. republicans seem to be opposing that. nbc news also reached out to justice thomas on comment for the reporting. he's welcome to join us any time for an interview. if he wants to clear this up or explain why he needs billionaire boosts to do his regular folk thing. we're going to fit in a break. when we come back, something special and uplifting i want to share with you tonight. g i want share with you tonight new pronamel active shield actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think that this product is a gamechanger for my patients- it really works. ♪ the thought of getting screened ♪ ♪ for colon cancer made me queasy. ♪ ♪ but now i've found a way that's right for me. ♪

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that the million boys and girls ♪ ♪ who are young gifted and black ♪ ♪ and that's a fact ♪ >> it could be hard to appreciate what that meant at the time. many talking about it as a breakthrough, of part of the black pride uplifting movement. and then it depends on how much you know about culture jamming because nina herself was invoking a play by lorraine hansbury of the same name, which explored the issues of civil rights, identity, what solidarity means and the frustration of liberals who would only join causes when it fit their vanity or their self-interest. and then all of this has been reset in hip-hop, which of course, draws on these traditions of jazz and blues and soul, because that same name was repurposed from the play and the song in a 2010 song by jay-z.

♪♪ . >> acting like you don't hear the screams from the ghetto here, a point that jay-z makes, consciously echoing the women who were the founders of some of those points, the playwright, nina symone, and that relationship between jazz and hip-hop and soul is something that continues today, and i got to go to the blue note jazz festival in california. i sat down with tall in quale. he was super interested in that. we also did an interview with robert glasper, one of the cohosts of the festival along with dave chappelle, and so many other great artists there, nas,

mary j. blige, day law soul, and someone you're going to see on "the beat" in the near future, the chicago artist, chance the rapper, whose family has ties from working for the obamas. we got to sit down after he headlines the festival. and we recorded an in depth episode of mavericks with ari melber. it's not out yet, but i wanted to share the blue note festival gave us a chance to connect. you can always look up the past episodes we have. season eight debuts this month, august 22nd, you'll see it here on tv on "the beat," and that's a preview and a little bit of the making of how these interviews come together. i'll be right back with one more thing. (christina) with verizon business unlimited, i get 5g, truly unlimited data, and unlimited hotspot data. so, no matter what, i'm running this kitchen. (vo) make the switch. it's your business. it's your verizon.

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we started the night with jack smith going through his long and quite striking record as a prosecutor. we ended with nina symone. a very beat kind of thing, but i wanted to ask all of you to reach out and let me know what

you thought of that report on jack smith, that rare footage, what does it tell you about him. you can let me know at ari melber on any social media or visit me at arimelber.com. you can share your email with me and that's a way i kept in touch with so many of you. thank you for spending time with us. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> you're entitled to believe and trust advice of counsel. you have one of the leading constitutional scholars in the united states, john eastman, say to president trump, this is a protocol that you can follow. it's legal. that eliminates criminal intent. >> trump's emerging defense, the lawyer said i could do it. and what it tells us about the emerging crisis of lawyering in america. plus, you just knew it was going to get worse. new reporting out today on even more